


The Wind of Heaven

by RainofLittleFishes



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Captivity, Family, Gen, Horses, Slavery, The ridiculous things horses do, alas - no centaurs, fairytales - Freeform, forced transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-22 05:23:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3716725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainofLittleFishes/pseuds/RainofLittleFishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr. Egbert meant to buy his son a pony. That's not quite what happened.</p><p>Mages. Flying ponies. Adorable and obnoxious children and/or animals.</p><p>(Fairy tales are filled with forced transformation, but fairy tales are often the unfleshed bones of the story. Where are the consequences? What is it like to be the mind trapped in a form that is not your own? There was/is/will be a Happy Ending, if not an Ever After. This is what happened before that.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stone walls do not a prison make / (if my soul be free)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breathe, Kankri. Whatever you do, don't panic.

In the eighth ring, money exchanges hands. Or rather, a figure in fine livery hands a small bag to a member of the Jeweler’s guild and the woman examines the contents. Three cut Bluebite diamonds, two matched four carat and a third eighteen, each one clear and the smaller two just faintly blue. The largest has a captivating depth and the hue that makes them desirable to both those who would use them for Working anchors and for ornament. The jeweler shakes her head and a runner is sent for another member of the guild. She can assure the quality of the smaller stones but eighteen carats is so ridiculously extravagant that it is more likely to be a sorcerous joke than not. A second opinion is required. The third person in the room sits and pours a glass of wine. 

The fourth person in the room is not considered a person. The fourth person in the room is you.

You kneel at the foot of the chair, head downcast, eyes shut behind the curtain of your now dark hair, a black that shines red where the light hits it. The collar around your neck is a more powerful piece of Working than even the creation of an eighteen carat diamond would be. Neither are your specialty, but you have a thorough grounding in all the basic theories of magic, enough to understand the costs in each form of Working. You have a thorough education in many things that had previously been theoretical to you. How many ways one can break into a Mage’s home and subdue them. How quickly pain can block out thought.

You cannot object to the proceedings. You cannot rise without a command. You cannot run no matter how fiercely you want escape. You concentrate on breathing. 

In. Out. Repeat. Life is a Dream. They cannot follow you to your inner refuge. They cannot know your thoughts. They can leash your magic, but they cannot prevent the innate gifts that allow you to See.

In. Out. You follows the eddies of possibility. You cannot affect anything corporeal. You cannot influence anything so close to the collar. But. Far enough away, if you wait, and watch, and wait, a puff of breath at just the right moment may spiral away into a change, a butterfly’s exhalation creating the perfect storm.

In. Out. Wait. Somewhere your direct parents and older sibling are likewise leashed into corporeal gendered forms. If you are lucky, your younger sibling and third parent are still free.

In. Out. Tears buy nothing. That puff of breath might mean everything to those you love.

In. Out.

Watch. Wait.

You swallow hard against the collar of shining dragon leather, a red so dark it appears a black matched to your hair, gleaming in the natural light through the windows. It is an airy room. No one is objecting to the transaction. You are the only one feeling a sense of suffocation. You wish you could shrink into a bird form and fly through the collar like it were a hoop. Perhaps a kestrel, small and sharp. A hummingbird, fast as an arrow, a smaller target. You wish you could tell the minor mage on the other end of the leash exactly what carnage slavery wrecks on the souls on all sides and that it would mean something to this arrogant middleman, or to the jeweler, or to the liegeman purchasing you for his master. It has only been two weeks. You think. It will likely get far worse than "training". 

You wish you could be a wolf again (safe against your parents, tumbling in play against Mituna, snap, snap, yelp, lick ( _sorry_ )), you wish you could be a mongoose (liquid ribbon of muscle and fur, Mituna will never catch you now ( _tag, you’re it_ )), you wish you could be a griffin again (heavy muscled wings, head darting and hind legs lifted to protect your belly as you tumble through the air and play fight with Mituna until one of you grows bored of it and shifts again ( _longing_ )).

You are a person, even when you are a beast. You are a citizen of the ninth ring. Someone will have filed a missing persons report for all four of you, however elaborate the abduction was.The Council’s appointed Blood and Shadow Mage will have been missed.The position of The Signless is difficult to fill, demanding as it does the sacrifice of familial political affiliations, and they are unlikely to find someone as patient a negotiator as Shadekith. Those with a thorough enough understanding of Magic, those with affinity for both personal magic and environmental, or Blood and Shadow, are either so scholarly as to avoid politics entirely or too ambitious to qualify for the duties of The Signless. Shadekith will be missed even by those who hold little love for your collected parent, if only for the headaches caused.

Psiion’s absence will likewise have been noted. The House of Liminal Spaces is probably already in a fervor like a disturbed anthill trying to find you all, sure that the fees for contracted work will soon be prorated or entirely forfeit if they cannot retrieve their best Mage-Princeps. Psiion is the second Mage-Princeps of Liminal Spaces, but only through a preference to avoid the politics inherent to the position of first. Psiion thinks politics get in the way of the expedience of blowing obstacles to pieces, an opinion popular with the mage miners, some of the younger set such as Mituna, and few else. 

Your own absence will be marked by your academic masters. Latula and Kurloz and will be searching for Mituna. The Disciple and Meulin will be seeking you all. Perhaps they are unraveling this bizarre attack from the other end even now.

You are a Mage and a Seer, if young. You are not a thing to be bartered. You wish for a form with fangs or teeth or sharp, sharp beak and talons. You wish you were better than to want violence, even against your oppressors, cogs in a system, cogs in a system outside what you have known. You fear to become less than what you are. Not the shackles of your body, no longer mutable to your thoughts, or your magic, subverted into maintaining the circuit that entraps you, but your _mind_. Even now your status _subverts your thoughts_.

How long can you be as good a person as you ought to be when you are daily faced with the effects of your enslavement? How soon will you hate them? How soon will you forget that equality and dignity have to be for everyone or no one has them? How soon will you fail your family twice over, once for not being able to protect any of them or yourself, for being unprepared, a liability and not an asset, and again for allowing circumstance to make you less?

Your blood thunders in your veins faster than it ought. There is a sound like the ocean whenever you tip your head. You want to shake yourself so fiercely this enforced flesh falls away.

You have never felt a strong pull to either male or female forms, assuming either as a matter of convenience or curiosity.

Mituna, older than you by several years, tumbled through a variety of forms with Latula, and if the lovers experimented with sex and species and environs and often favored some, you would, sooner or later, hear _more_ than enough about it from your siblings if the gossip didn’t reach you by other methods first.

If it worried you that you felt no such stirrings, long after the age the lovers were when they began their tumbles, well, you had been preoccupied with your education. Shadekith told you that some only feel the kindling of such things when a suitable target appears, had smiled gently and tossed out a sly wave to indicate Psiion and Discipula both, hand-cant rotating with an entirely false modesty. You had waved back your own _“please can we speak no further on it?!”_ with an extra snap to the emphasis, embarrassed as much as reassured.

You had been too old to allow yourself to curl up in a parent’s lap, however fiercely you just wish you could now. Mituna had told you shortly thereafter that you were just a slowpoke and shifted so quickly that you were still righting yourself from the bite to your shoulder when your older sibling went out the window and heavy wingbeats carried your quarry away as you flung yourself after. You had stung with anger at the time. In retrospect you can admit that it was a kindness to distract you. Your eyes water at the thought of what your captors might have done to Mituna. You had heard a crack. Was it wood or bone?

The ninth ring has its dangers but you were sheltered. You know little of what lies in store for a slave but your fear. What use do they have for you _but_ this body with your magic locked away? You are relieved to be male now, however stifling the immutable form is, however awkward and uncomfortable it feels to _be_ instead of _choose to be_ , like a breath once taken that you cannot exhale.

Whatever they do, they cannot make you carry more mage children to grow in the stifling double oppression of their control and a predetermined form. The shifting gift is maternal, however easily your once mother parent might well have been your siblings’ sire.

Most mages are born to their _only_ forms. Shadow-gray skin, in a variety of shades. Horns, in a variety of shapes and sizes. Of course, there are those with neither trait, especially in the middle rings, and still well endowed with reserves of power or practiced finesse, but most of the ninth ring, the majority of the eighth, comes from mage stock so long entrenched in magic and Workings that that magic has Worked you right back. Meulin and Discipula both proudly sport sharp claws, their hand-cant likewise sharper, more elegant.

Your head feels odd without the weight of your small horns. Mituna thought, _thinks_ , them funny, your older sibling is prone to flaunting four sharp daggers emerging from flyaway hair, but you don’t mind the comparison. It was, _is_ , your goal to model yourself after Shadekith, so if your horns are a mirror to your parent’s it is, _was_ , a secret pride. One can change their horns, but why bother? When one finds a good resting form, it defeats the purpose to resist it. This form is not far from your own, _but it is not yours_.

You will not dwell on the coercive forces used to force you into this shape. Your lungs still ache. Under unbroken now golden skin some of your nerves still feel as if they are aflame. You have worked through worse, even if it was supervised, and for your own betterment.

Whatever they inflict on your form and your mind, you will endure and observe and catalog. This you repeat to yourself, silently. Your lips do not move.

Someday you will escape. Someday you will bring the whole underground market of human trafficking to a halt. It will be an extreme academic and social exercise. You repeat to yourself the details you know of who knows what has occurred.

Your abductors, each of them cataloged, even through the pain of revisiting the night attack, each of the blows rained down on Mituna, on you, the flash and boom when Psiion fought one or more in another room under the disadvantage of ambush, the shock of feeling Shadekith’s formidable presence ripped away.

Their unknown employer.

The minor horned mage behind you drinking wine from a sixth ring province known for grassy reds.

The jeweler and the purchaser. The runner child.

Do the last three know _what_ you are, or only that you are property?

You wish you could recall more of the police blotters from home. How common are missing people? Is this just a convenient method of disposal for an inconvenient politician and the inconvenient mate and offspring, or is it an active source of revenue to someone in the ninth ring? (Was someone so incensed that The Signless inevitably makes connections outside of what would have been available to Shadekith as a private citizen? Did Psiion finally tell one joke too many for the patience of the contract binders? Did Mituna and Latula stumble across something in their wild explorations? Did someone access your library searches and judge them dangerous? Or is it it something else entirely?) Your thoughts spin like the constellations sped to a fast reel. 

The runner comes back and you lift your gaze up just enough to catalog the new jeweler. Forty to forty-five, seventeen and a half hands at the crown, 12 stone, brown eyes, laugh lines at the corners of the eyes and mouth, nose broken at least once, nervous twitch to the fingers, pierced left ear a fraction higher than the pierced right, right eyelid heavier than the left, the faintest cast of mage gray to his skin, no scent of anything stronger. You will remember that expression and that face. It is useful to remember faces, even among those who can change them.

Even a few short years ago you would play _imitate-if-you-can_ with Mituna and Meulin, the flashes of hand-cant interspersed with the shifting of your features, the ridiculous expressions you’d make at one another to make it harder to see the truth of the features below. It was better training than you had realized, and not for the first time you find yet another thing to admire about Shadekith and wonder if you will ever be as perceptive. It was Shadekith and Discipula who would shepherd the three of you out for long chasing hunts, tag-you’re-it among multiple forms, your best hope scent, magic, and familiarity when sight failed or night fell. Psiion’s lessons had more to do with meticulous physical manipulations and showy destruction.

The second jeweler verifies the first’s assessment and gladhands both buyer and seller with smiles and a few jokes. The guild will receive six percent. The first jeweler takes her leave and he follows with a last comment regarding the stock’s bright eyes. “Brighter than garnets. A red more true than ruby. Quite exotic.” Just like your skin is “good quality, quite flawless, really”. Just like your hands are “slim, uncalloused, suitable for fine work or sensitivity”. It is all just _flesh_ , not you. What does any of it signify but someone’s fantasy, strange society conventions of beauty or taboo?

You want to tell this smiling man that people are not property, that he should save his laughter and goodwill for influencing people for the betterment of society and not facilitating a blood economy. The collar’s Working assures that you cannot speak. You do not allow your hands to move.

The transaction concludes and your new master’s liegeman takes the leash, tells you to stand and follow. He doesn’t hit you or tug hard or bother to taunt. Abusing property devalues it. There is little that you can do to resist. Your plan, such as it is, depends on chance and the vagaries of the future. You must be meek, amenable to instruction, not a risk to be watched closely. You rise and follow.

You bite your tongue until you taste blood and swallow it down with prayers to all who might listen. Please let your parents be safe. Please let Mituna be safe. Please let you escape. You want to see them again. You want to huddle between them all and smell each of them close by and chase Mituna and Meulin through the ocean until you tag your siblings with a raft of bubbles and laugh so hard you have to shift. Laughter seems very far away. You place your feet carefully as you follow. The world might at any moment shift, a personal earthquake like you are a fly on a horse’s back. Twitch. Shudder. You place your feet carefully and ignore your shadow, half sure that if you were to watch it you’d find hysteria hiding in the folds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Stone walls do not a prison make", Richard Lovelace


	2. The wind of heaven (is that which blows between a horse's ears).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane, be merciful.

You had gone to market for a few handfuls of peppercorns and nutmeg, perhaps some foreign spices for winter tisanes or stews, or a few handicrafts whose adaptation might while away winter hours and ultimately offer some income to the local cottage industries. You had come home with several hundred pounds of dying horse instead. It’s all Jake’s fault. You firmly, if perhaps unfairly, assert that it always is.

You are the eldest child of the Count of the Bluebite Mountains, a territory of the seventh ring known for its rich diamond mines and fertile valleys, the former mined by well-paid mages, the latter farmed by your people. You lead a very privileged life, but you must do so within certain confines. You spend most of your life, spring to fall, within the castle in the capital, learning the complicated dances of politics and trade negotiation, drilling in staff and sword and wit. You travel with your father in your seasonal trips between your own estate and the castle, but your free time is limited. Within the capital you might go to the market, you might go on “hunting” trips that last a day and loop back to be within the castle walls in time for dinner, a host of brightly dressed humans and sleek long limbed jumpers, but someone is always watching, and you seldom have time to yourself outside your room. Here at your family’s estate, there is time for silence, but little time to waste.

It was a beautiful fall day and you had worked extra hard to carve the morning out for a trip to the last big market before frost threatened, and Jake had invited himself along. He had offered to make the trip for you, but you enjoy the crisp fall air and the crunch of leaves and the last colorful sights before the long winter. You love your brother, you love his friendly and honorable nature, his buckteeth, identical to yours, his stupid adorable tiny three-pointed horns that are still half the mass of yours, his silly obsession with fast horses and lower ring technology…you wouldn’t change anything about him, but Jake is _not conducive to silence_.

You had contemplated sending him off to hunt down part of your list, but you aren’t convinced he’d haggle and you’re half convinced he’d come back with walnuts having paid for nutmeg. So you had tried to readjust your expectations and just be glad for some time with him, before he heads back to the capital in a month. The two of you walk the miles to the market, horses deliberately left at home, and you’re back to a good mood by the time you arrive.

You lose that mood abruptly, though not immediately. The two of you are approaching from the animal traders’ side, with its strings and pens of sheep, goats, donkeys, ponies, horses, mules, cows, oxen, chickens, ducks, and pigs, as well as the attendant noise and smells. It’s the last chance for sellers before buyers decide to wait for spring when they won’t have to feed an animal through the winter before getting any work or eggs or milk. For some of the older animals, it’s their last chance before someone slaughters them for meat to avoid feed costs.

Jake spends an unreasonably long time examining the horses. He has his own two, even if Star’s getting on in years. He doesn’t _need_ a horse. He just can’t resist eyeing anything that can run faster than he can, while carrying him. Jake fiercely covets the chance to visit the fourth or third ring, which has as yet not presented itself. They have _automobiles_. In the second and first ring, they have _aeroplanes_. You make sure to play up the good qualities of the mules, propose a sheep-drawn cart, to which your brother rolls his eyes.

The Bluebite domain is known for its woolen goods and you chat with a few local sheep farmers, and some of the regular traders. Everyone is respectful, if not always friendly. You don’t pretend that many of them aren’t relieved when you move on. The Count is popular in that he has reasonable expectations of taxes, is intelligent about storing food for bad seasons. You’re a sign of authority, someday you may rule in his place, and no one wants to give offence. Still, you have mended enough broken limbs and concussions, assisted enough births with the local midwives with your strong but only half-trained healing gift, that there are always at least some who welcome you honestly.

You putter in the weaving and fleece aisle while Jake grows bored. A new vendor is there from the third ring, with longhaired rabbits as soft as the most exotic shawls you’ve felt. Jess and her stock ought to be with the livestock, but the rabbits are quiet and clean, friendly even, and no one seems to mind. She speaks the seventh ring northern standard clearly, if with an accent. Her skin is a rich brown-gold not found among those born here. This far north in the seventh, skin ranges from pale to gray to almost black among those with mage ancestry, but the closest thing to gold-brown is due to sun.

You pet a bit of roving and one of the animals, very warm and soft, and think that it would be good to diversify the livelihood of your people. Rabbits take up less grazing than sheep and could be tended by younger children even if they would require higher maintenance in some ways. It wouldn’t replace sheep, but the winters are cold here and the pricy synthetics from rings with lower magic levels never last long. It would mean sourcing a larger population than she has in stock, though not before a trial run.

You linger and chat with Jess and one of your friends among the local women, Sara, married, three children, the youngest twins at whose arrival you were present to assist. Sara agrees to heading up the trial run with a few friends and you part ways but wander in the same general direction. Jake heaves a gusty sigh when he follows. You didn’t stay as long as you did _just_ because it would annoy him, but it was a nice bit of frosting.

You’re heading for the spice tents, three this year, you can see their ribbons and smell the hot sugar from the spiced candy stall adjacent, when your day takes its turn. You see the person before you see the horse, the one moving, the other frozen in terror, and both are such masses of brown and gray that it takes a moment to resolve the scene before you. It is only a fraction of a second, but you’re already striding forward with a firm, “That is quite ENOUGH.” You don’t run. It’s important not to allow people to know if they’ve knocked you off balance.

You don’t have to say anything to Jake, he is already moving to pull the stranger away from the pitiful animal, a mess of browns, mud and waste and a crumpled blanket across its back, all hitched to a ramshackle cart full of straw and boxes, bones clearly visible even under the dirt and thick matted hair.

Jake convinces the stranger to lower their quirt, and you grab the horse’s bridle and shush at it, nonsense to let it know that someone is there that won’t hurt it. There are blinders on the bridle and it probably can’t get a very good look at you until you get square in front of it. It certainly can’t see what’s going on in the direction from which the blows rained just a moment past. Its neck is set well upright by nature, but the harness cranks it even higher so the poor thing is almost stargazing, nose tipped so high it would probably fall over backwards if it went uphill.

The stranger is yelling at Jake now, and Jake is trying to calm him down. It’s clear he doesn’t recognize you, and it’s clearer still when he flails the quirt at Jake and upsets a box on the cart. The box splits open by the horse’s overgrown hind hooves and out of the box spills straw packing and waxed eggs. Out of the eggs spill streams of white powder, cleverly magicked into their fragile concealment. The stranger freezes and everyone else who can see it does too. There’s a hush that didn’t spread so thickly until the eggs cracked.

The dust rising off the powder swirls in tiny opalescent shapes that shift from faces to fairies to dragons and back again. You cover your mouth and nose with your sleeve. The horse jerks back from you and you can see its eyes roll. On a hunch, you turn and cluck, give the bridle a soft tug. The animal stumbles forward until it’s clear of the mess. Sara brings a bucket of water and carefully dumps it over the wafting powder. Once dampened, it will soon be inactive. Once dry again there will be nothing alluring or toxic left to it. A few more people drift up to stand by and behind Jake.

The stranger is still squawking, still somehow certain that he can bully his way out of this as Jake informs him that smuggling Haze is no small offense. Your brother informs this stranger of exactly who you both are and that it’s within your rights to sentence him, this last while holding the unpleasant man in an armlock after he tried to hit your brother again. You’re almost surprised when the unpleasant man agrees to leave. Jake looks a bit disappointed. You’re relieved.

You don’t want to deal further than necessary with someone who’s been taking Haze. The stranger’s shadow has started to fragment and the edges are opalized. Haze will drain a magic worker’s power even as it convinces them otherwise, granting surges of strength and pain tolerance to those with and without magic. It will eat its addicts alive, magic or no magic. Whoever he’s running Haze for, either they have him hooked or they don’t know he’s dipping into the goods. Quietly, you ask Sara if she can find out who the stranger was here to see or who might have been here to buy. Unsaid is that he should be followed to see that he makes it out of your homeland without accosting any of your citizens. She’s a practical sort and will manage without doing anything to put herself in danger. That much Haze was just passing through. As much damage as it could do here, in your peaceable valleys and valuable mines, it was never intended to stay. Someone is going to go home empty-handed.

The stranger leaves with a pack, inspected, but no horse. He leaves his cart behind. You hold the horse’s bridle and unbuckle the straps holding his head cranked high as Jake and several others haul the eggs over to a half full liberated log trough and dump them in, making sure to crack and mix them. Soon the cart’s empty but for the ratty load of straw and a pitchfork has seen to it that no eggs survived their immersion. You turn your concentration back to the horse, take a quick glance back and under as you work your formerly clean fingers into dirty mane, give a good scratch just where your pony used to love it. Male. Quite.

You’re not sure what you’re going to do with this wreck, but his nose is very soft and he’s been quiet since you started to talk to him, seems to appreciate a bit of “ _what a good fellow_ ”. Calm. Tired. Resigned. No one else could afford the cost of feeding an animal that may well be dying anyhow. If you don’t take him, he’ll likely end up in stew.

Even standing he gives the impression of staggering on his curled hooves and you hold the bridle and talk calmly while you undo more straps with your free hand. Sara’s husband and a few others, now finished with the eggs, help work him free. You get the harness down to the bridle and reins, tying them off so that there’s no chance of him stepping on one. Normally, between a thin strap of leather and hundreds of pounds of muscle and bone, the rein snaps, but the horse’s condition is so bad you can see hollows in his flanks, each of his ribs as clear as the flying buttresses on sixth ring’s great Cathedral. If he trips, he might just go down and stay down. They push the cart back until he’s well free of the shafts and he rests his head against your chest, leaning rather more than you’d normally let one of your own try on you. You can’t quite get a good look at his eyes, just an impression of how dark and big they are under long lashes, but he has long ears with little curls to the tips, incongruously elegant, and as quiet as he is, both of them are pointed at you like a hound on the scent of a fox.

You speak gently, something about a warm mash, and rub behind his ears, one of the least dirty parts, and you pull gently on the dirty blanket, but while it falls down, it doesn’t fall off, spreading out in an unreal expansion so that the thin body seems to double in size.

Even so badly worn, you think that the pegasus is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. You find yourself blinking back tears that someone would desecrate something so magical. He rests his head against you and sighs, a long full exhale of huge lungs. He props up a back foot like he might try to sleep. His wings sort of crumple back in, no longer cramped but still not quite right. You’ve never seen a flying horse up close. Alive. You morbidly wonder for how long.

Jake buys a quarter cart of hay from one of the local farmers and pays for help lifting your worn fellow in and out. You tried to walk him back, and made it only a few yards before he tripped and only a quick lean kept him on his feet. You checked his teeth, and he seems like a young animal, maybe four-ish, but he can’t tell you where he’s been or what’s happened to him. You ride in the back with his head in your lap because when you tried to get out after he was heaved in, he panicked. Your poor mud baby. You can feel his need pull at you and you let a bit of your gift trickle into him as you ride home, hope it fortifies him against the malnutrition and who knows what else. You can’t feel anything so fervently demanding as a broken bone or bleeding, but his sheer fatigue drags at you until you find yourself blinking with it and cutting off the flow before you start again, cautiously.

You lean against Jake and feel your horns clink, the reverberation makes you close your eyes. Jake puts his hand over yours and you can feel the energy that is distinctively _Jake_ sort of push or offer. You wish you knew how to accept.

Behind you, your list goes unfilled, though one of Sara’s friends will see what she can find you. Behind you, a mess of Haze worth enough to overwinter everyone in your domain gives up the last of its insidious magic to plain water and someone will no doubt be grumbling when the trough is dumped and makes an inconveniently large mud puddle. You wonder if the cart can be salvaged or if someone will add it to the bonfire tonight, its past service inauspicious enough to make renovation unappealing. You wonder where the Haze came from, where it was headed, what trouble has been averted and what will merely start somewhere else. Did you do the right thing? Was there perhaps a better option?

If Jake hadn’t invited himself along, you’d have been well free of the market by the time the ramshackle cart and doomed horse sloughed past. It’s strange how the smallest things can cause such a difference.

The first thing you do when you get back is lift your sorry rescue case out of the cart with the aid of a heavy horse blanket and the two farmers. They make sure he’s upright before pitching the hay into a free box stall and heading back to the market.

You water your new charge, then brush him, several times, harassing Jake into helping you so that it goes more quickly. Jake looks undecided as to if to be thrilled (Oh, wow, a real live flying horse is probably faster than an _automobile_!) or disappointed (How soon will this poor stiff go belly up?). You can read your brother like a book.

You tie your new horse up with a short line and let him work at some hay as you go. He goes at it enthusiastically, letting your heart rise with hope, but he soon peters out only halfway through, mouthing a few strands at a time and dropping them as he lowers his head and cocks a hind leg like he wants to sleep, then shifts, continuously, to switch sides. His shadow, when you finally notice, is smaller than it ought to be, edges whirled in places. You hadn’t known that Haze could affect animals. Of course, magical animals may be even more susceptible. You watch a little piece of his shadow spin off and fade and you sink your fingers under his dirty mane and try to feed him a bit more of your strength.

You feel guilty keeping Mud Baby upright longer than you have to. Healthy horses often sleep upright, but you don’t blame him for wanting to lie down. Still, you want to get all the mud and worse off to see what you’re working with, see if he needs further treatment. Clouds of dust and hair and no few feathers rise as the two of you work at the filth. Your nose is clogged with the sheer mass of it and you sneeze gray. You’d love to wash him, but it’s already getting cold and your curiosity has to take a distant second seat to his comfort. It’s just an idle fancy, like a child with a new toy. You are not a child and Mud Baby is no toy.

You run your hands gently but quickly over the feathers, and those at least quickly show improvement, proving to be a pearly dove gray under the grime. There are a more than a few feathers missing, and many of the remaining ones show wear and bald patches. You gently pull the wing on your side to its full extension, then return it. It doesn’t appear to have suffered any damage to the bones. Mud Baby doesn’t so much as flinch, just twitches it back into place. His head is lowered now and you think that even surrounded by strangers, he’s falling asleep. You guide the little feather barbs on one impressive primary back together until they settle without further irritation.

Jake has already run his hands over Mud Baby’s legs and back on his side, and found a few sores from the harness. You do the same on your side and are relieved that his legs seem fine, though his hooves are atrociously overgrown. You spot clean his sores and dab them with ointment. He jerks a few times, but doesn’t resist. He knows you’re helping him, you tell yourself. Or maybe he’s just too tired. You pick his hooves while Jake stands at his opposite corner ready to push if he starts to sway. The crud that falls free smells horrible, but you don’t _think_ it’s worse than normal hoof debris horrible.

When you finish, Mud Baby certainly doesn’t gleam, but he proves to be a lovely dun color, yellow gold fuzz wherever his black points peter out, tall black stockings topped with two bars of black on each leg, a dorsal strip of black, and another two bars on his dock. Without the cheek straps with their blinders his eyes prove to be mismatched, one blue and the other an almost reddish brown. He has four white spots above his eyes, perfectly symmetrical. You are more than a bit in love.

You lead him into a stall and try to get the bridle off, but while the bit is easy enough, the bridle is actually all add-ons to a tight leather halter and you can’t find a buckle or tie. You even take your knife to it, carefully, but can’t make so much as a notch. This is not right. Still, he’s going to his knees, and then folding down on the straw. You make sure his water is full and you tell him goodnight and close up behind you.

*

The next morning Mud Baby suffers you to tug him upright and lets the local blacksmith clip his hooves back. He eats the hay steadily as Jamie works and doesn’t fight at all, at least not unless you count him nipping Jake. Jake ought to know better than to turn his back on a strange animal, even such a tired one. It was, of course, just a coincidence that Jake had been speculating on how soon Mud Baby would be strong enough to be gelded. Jake is ridiculous. If Mud Baby survives, well, no one wants their _riding_ stock flying off, but he’s worth his healthy weight in steel at least if he breeds true. Flying carriages are all the rage and have been for decades, not just for the convenience, but for the exclusivity. There are never enough flying horses for everyone who would want one, or better yet, a matched set, and the eighth ring claims they’re only bred in the ninth. Someone should be missing him, but whoever it is, it’s not the drug-addled drug smuggler who had him last.

*

With careful application of your talent, and Jake’s mostly ungrudging help, you get Mud Baby stable enough to work a worming cantrip after two weeks. Mud Baby spends another week miserable as the worms _and_ the rest of the Haze work their way out of his system and you bribe him with carrots and a few handfuls of grass until he will walk a dozen circuits of the grounds before he refuses to budge further.

If he _wasn’t_ a horse you’d hold him responsible for the time he knocked Jake in the mud when Jake took over walking him while you worked, but it is off course just fancy that you think he looks like he’s laughing. Between your healing and Jakes fervent wish magic, unreliable but powerful, Mud Baby soon looks like he deserves a more dignified name. His stupid seamless halter is filthy despite your best efforts and you end up taking your seam ripper to it, one stitched thread at a time. When you finally get it off, after hours and hours of work and three re-sharpenings, you clean his face and dab salve over the rubbed spots and give him a big fat kiss on his squishy horse nose. He wrinkles his face and sneezes on you. You tug his forelock and baby talk while playing with his ears. It’s your little secret. No one makes a better confidant than a horse.

*

Jake heads back to the capital on schedule.

You work through the winter, studies and budgeting and readying your orders and visiting your people when your gift is needed. You think you’ve made a breakthrough with your gift, finding a technique that seems to help you control how fast it dispenses, currying and brushing Mud Baby and then working your hands over his coat and down his wings, stimulating circulation with both physical manipulation and your gift. He’s grown fond of you and now greets you with a nicker.

Your own horse, patient Smoke, fifteen and perpetually moving from gray to lighter gray to white, hangs over his own stall door and tries to make friends or cage his own treats. Your rescue seems friendly so you cautiously introduce them and they’re soon inseparable. Horses are herd animals, and Smoke gets along well enough with Daisy and Beauty and Star and even Jake’s obnoxious Rusty, but it’s clear that Mud Baby has been alone for some time. They stand head to rump even in the cold of winter, when there are no flies to necessitate it. When Mud Baby is well enough be turned out, he won’t leave without Smoke. Smoke dislikes going out in the cold so you start his mornings with a bit of your new technique to get his blood going. Your daily routine soon becomes rise, feed the horses, rub down your two, and return to the manor to shake feeling back in to your fingers. Soon you can safely work the technique on yourself, and isn’t _that_ a revelation.

Midwinter arrives and Mud Baby smells healthy now. If it were summer he’d shine. As it is, he’s grown in a fuzzy winter coat and you groom him every day to be sure you don’t miss some form of complication under the concealing fuzz. The hollows in his flanks are filling in, as are the atrophied muscles in his wings. You pat his rump and braid his tail while giving him a pep talk. Mud Baby’s ears flick to listen to you while he works his way through his hay net. Jamie slowly trims his hooves as they grow out and they soon appear sound.

Spring comes and Mud Baby sheds out his coat to a steely gray with pale dapples, dramatically different from his fall dun. He still has the darker bars over his legs and dock, the dorsal stripe. He still has the four tiny spots of white on his brow, but now his wings pump as he trots along the fence line and he drinks the wind in through quivering nostrils and he screams proclamations of his stallionhood and he races in a ground eating gallop and bucks because he can. His feathers, molted in the winter, grow back darker and sharply barred like some great hawk. The gaps fill in. You can no longer wrap a lead line twice around his head, once behind his ears, once over his nose, and take him where you would.

He’s not precisely headshy, you can dandle his ears and forelock all day, braid and re-braid his mane in webs or bobbles or a running braid with ribbons. He lets you brush the eye snot out of his eyes with nothing but slow blinks, but as soon as you get out so much as a lead line, he bolts. You are getting a lot of exercise and fresh air, you tell yourself. You shouldn’t give in to his demands, you tell yourself as you shake a grain bucket to lure him back inside. Mud Baby will follow you until something distracts him, and he’s started making short flights. His shadow has become exactly as solid and crisply lined as the lighting conditions imply ought to be appropriate.

You have the sinking feeling that you have released a monster on the world when your sad rescue case, now a magnificent and high-spirited 16 hand tall flying horse, brings you a wild goose, neck snapped, and drops it at your feet like a smug mouser. He does a little prance and some “see, aren’t I pretty?” posturing. The next day is a wild turkey, also dead. Then a rabbit. Spring is greeted with a never ending variety to the stewpot, thankfully all wild and not someone’s lambs or chickens. He greets Jake’s return after a winter at court with a dead skunk dropped with impeccable aim from two stories above.

You can no longer pretend he’s a poor abused nag. He’s a menace. A very beloved menace that makes a racket building a nest on the roof and shoves his head in through the window of your third floor bedroom to bugle a wakeup call at you every morning.

Jake takes a certain dislike to Mud Baby, blaming him for tripping over his own feet or banging into doors. Your father finally weighs in and reminds Jake that even if Mud Baby _were_ an ill luck magnet, he’s still an animal in your care and that Jake will have to learn to deal with worse. Mud Baby whickers when he hears you coming and makes a little snicker sounds when he hears Jake. Jake brings him carrots and tries to sternly lecture him as to his duties to his hosts. Mud Baby accepts the bribes and sneezes on him. The aerial assaults cease.

Outside of Jake’s view you sneak your terrible pet extra carrots and call him a good boy, scratch that itchy spot he gets behind his ears, let him nibble at your up-curved horns. You dream about flying but remain firmly planted on the ground. A horse can be dangerous, even without ill intent. Doubtless a flying one is far more so. You know that Mud Baby wouldn’t hurt you intentionally. That doesn’t mean you trust him with your life. He moves freely now, has for a while. You tell yourself to be practical. Your life is not yours alone. You have responsibilities.

You let the horses out into the pasture in the mornings now and even Smoke kicks up his heels. Mud Baby, outdoors all the time now, canters up to greet you. You lean into his shoulder, wrap your arms around his neck and smell the clean horse smell of him. You close your eyes and imagine the jerk of liftoff, the wind, the power of his legs and wings. Even without wings, Mud Baby would be inherently magical, just as you are. His wings alone wouldn’t be enough to let him fly.

You lean into his shoulder a bit more and he swings his head around, nudges your hip, carefully grabs the loose shirt and not skin as he pulls. You tickle his nose and he lets you go.

“Where do flying horses come from, Handsome, hmm? And don’t give me a Jake answer, I know all about where all sorts of babies come from. It’s just that there should be more of you if it’s just a matter of horse breeding.” You don’t expect an answer.

He heaves out a great horsey sigh and drops his head to graze on the new grass. You climb the fence and sit to watch him, the impossible beauty of his horse shape merged with the occasional flick of those great wings. You only have a few minutes before you should head back in, you have a lot to do, as always. He wanders over, sidles up to the fence, wings curiously lifted. You scoot further away as his flank touches your legs. He’s never played power games with you, never tried to trap or squash you against a fence or wall like Rusty, but you still don’t want to be trapped.

He looks over his shoulder at you, and tosses his head, backs up until his rump is even with you again, and when he stretches his near wing forward it’s almost a dream when you take the invitation and slide on and up. There’s no room for your legs, and you kneel on his back, grateful that in the relative privacy of home you always work barn chores in heavy pants and not skirts. You wrap your fingers in his thick mane and he starts to move at a diagonal across the longest part of the pasture, first a slow walk, then faster, a gentle trot, disarmingly smooth for its speed, a smooth gentle canter, a gallop likewise fast but strangely smooth.

You hardly notice when he leaves the ground. His wingbeats are more abrupt than the gallop though you still feel like he’s being careful with you. It was foolish to do this one part of you insists.

Exhilaration and terror battle in the pit of your stomach and you watch the landscape in the slices between his neck and wings, the little window between his curly ears touching, now flicked forward, now one cocked back when he banks and you catch a view of the shining lake two valleys over and sigh. You lean as he banks and it feels natural to align yourself with the wind and gravity and velocity.

It can’t have been very long when he finally sets down on the estate roof, and pulls his wings inward as if to settle them. He can’t of course, not with you there. He twists his neck around and maybe flying horses have more vertebrae than regular ones because he manages to nudge your knee, still tucked up not quite under you, and his wings twitch twice, so that you are immersed in feathers, pat, pat, like a very strange hug. You slid down off his flank because you can’t dismount over his wing and you keep your hand on him as you go because even after such a short time your knees are protesting their cramped position. You reach for the wall and steady yourself on that instead.

Mud Baby swaps out ends almost before you notice and you come back to yourself to the sensation of his whiskers twitching all over your face. You laugh and push at his nose, the beauty of that flight, somehow also a pain, brought back to earth by something normal and silly. You plop a big wet kiss on his nose and he’s a horse, but you’re not, so you say, “Thank you, that was amazing.”

He whickers, and licks a huge stripe up your face, from chin to brow to hair to horn. You shove at him but you’re laughing. You don’t know that this is the second to last time that you’ll see him. That evening, when spring has arrived and the soft insect chorus greets sunset, you are packing to return to the capital and worrying over what to do with Mud Baby, when he makes it a moot point.

Spring comes and Mud Baby flies away into the dusk. 

Jake would be so jealous if he knew.


	3. The Outside of a Horse Being Good for the Inside of a Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mr. Egbert: Acquire Hayburners

When you unclip the lead line by reaching through the trailer window, the less-than-ideal lesser of two evils, the tall thin, almost metallic buckskin stud comes off the trailer in two great leaps, one clearing the ramp entirely and the second ending in a small buck. He bolts in a tight circle, head up and eyes rolling, like he’s forcing himself to assess you up close, far enough away that you can’t reach him, close enough that you can’t close the door and take the other inhabitant of the trailer away before he can get to you.

He whinnies, high and fearful, and the blood bay mare in the trailer whickers back, reassuring. You climb into the trailer with an eye still on the nervous horse casting about in half circles. You pat the mare on her neck and untie her, lead her down the ramp, which she takes cautiously, but without resistance. The stud plunges toward you and you have a second to think, _well this was foolish_ , and hope that John’s not watching, but he plunges to a halt just outside your arm’s length and whuffles at the mare. The bay steps forward along the slack lead and extends her neck until they touch noses, as if to say, _there, all here and accounted for, no need for histrionics_ , and the buckskin relaxes a bit.

The mare is glossy and gravid, dapples on her flanks, sweetly mannered, curvy from head to neck to belly to rump, long black flowing mane and tail, gorgeous like every eight year old’s image of the perfect Arabian. She’s also lame in both front legs and good for nothing but a life of quiet lawn ornamentation. Whoever bred her, or allowed it by inattention, either knew more than you, or cared little for what the extra weight might do to her legs.

You went to the auction to get John a tall pony or small riding horse. You came home with two and a half utterly unsuited equines instead. They don’t have any papers. The stallion is like the very definition of attractive nuisance. You don’t know how far along she is, or by whom, though they certainly act like they’re herdmates. You were a child the last time you had anything to do with a farm animal giving birth, and she is very much not a cow or sheep. You have no idea if they’ve been wormed, or how you’re ever going to catch either one of them, or if this will all end in tragedy.

You unhook the lead from the halter and the mare dips her head and lips your palm once, courteously, almost like an acknowledgement, a _how do you do, thank you for your hospitality_. She walks, slowly, calmly, to her companion and it’s like the eye of a storm as he dances around her, posturing for her benefit, or his, or yours, until she’s far enough away, two thirds across the two acre field, that when she puts her head down to graze, he crops the grass next to her, still watching you, still putting his body between the two of you.

You get into the cab and start the truck up again, switch out with John, he’s thirteen and it’s your own property, maybe you don’t want him driving with the trailer yet, but he’s old enough to learn the basics. As John eases the truck and trailer forward through the opening in the fence line, you close the gate behind your new overly large, overly expensive, overly dangerous pets.

*

John had a rough year at school and you had moved out to the second ring to start over. Almost twenty years ago you moved to the first ring from the seventh, hoping to leave behind your memories and emotional upset along with your family. By some miracle of timing and serendipity you had invested your inheritance in a down market which shot up shortly thereafter. You sold a few things you had chosen for a lark, or for their names that resembled things from home, and you had been set, if not for life, than at least with a cushion of resources. You worked a few years, and reinvested your earnings and income more broadly, and by the time John came along, by the time you took a trip to the fifth ring and came home with an unexpected baby, you really didn’t _have_ to work at all.

Once John went to school you found yourself in need of something to occupy your time and had gone back to work, but after the fiasco two years ago, after the bullies, you decided to get a bit more in touch with your roots, work the land a bit instead of a desk. You bought a farm in the second ring that was mostly fields and a few fruit trees, started a vegetable garden, and watched your son like a hawk every day to and from and after school. You’re not letting some ruffians attack your child again.

John found a few friends at school, the second ring has a bit more ambient magic than the first, and he’s hardly the outlier here with his tiny gusts of wind, and started riding lessons. You’d found that as much as human friends have helped, he really connects with the horses, a hunch you had from your own childhood.

You have fond memories of your own pony, Popinjay, a plump hardy creature with smart ears and clean legs and perhaps an eighth pegasus in his lines. Popinjay had been your confidant and your courage, a fuzzy little bumblebee of a pony that trotted like a torture device, cantered like a dream, and couldn’t fly except when he jumped. Popinjay had carried you hundreds of miles safely, with your only falls your own fault, but would almost always try to scrap you off on the barn door. The little bay gelding had been your first instructor in pranks, in learning to outthink another without truly harming them. You know he must be long dead, but you like to think of him as you saw him last, a slowly graying form in the far fields of home.

Earlier this year John’s instructor noted that he was competent and mature enough for his own pony or horse, if it was of interest to you, and you had agreed. The two of you had set a budget and scoured the ads, but there hadn’t been anything of interest within a few hours driving within the second ring. You probably should have taken someone along with you to the auction in the third ring. It’s been twenty years since you’ve ridden, or had any need to judge horseflesh. You know you’ve been taken for something of a financial ride. You’re just not sure how much of emotionally damaging one it will be.

John saw the stallion first and immediately fell in love. How could he not? The buckskin is full of fire and intelligence, the constant posturing that makes the human eye covet such movement. There are two stripes of white down his face and four dots above his mismatched eyes. His ears are long and so curly the tips touch when he perks them both forward. His legs and back and neck are long and his coat thin and shining, each rib and leg bone illuminated as if someone created him to be an example of horse anatomy. His motions are fast and graceful. He looks like a neurotic headcase.

Your son is not stupid. He knew, just as you knew, that there was no sense in bidding on the buckskin. He can’t handle him, you have no use of a stud, and no one wants to deal with that type of liability if they don’t need one.

John saw the mare next and he wasn’t the only one who fell in love. The mare was standing at the edge of the pen, as the stallion circled, and when you walked over, she leaned over to whuffle his face and hands. When you read the catalog and it listed her as lame your face fell too. It takes a bit of urging to get her to move, but when she does you can see it very clearly, concealed only by her reluctance to move.

Despite your plans, John doesn’t fall in love with any of the other ponies. He doesn’t fall in love with any of the horses. And when the two of them are led out together, the second to last lot, you wait a moment for someone to meet the starting bid and no one does. Neither have any papers. You raise your hand.

You find yourself leading the mare up the trailer, slowly, so slowly as she limps, and you wonder if you’re bringing her home to die, wonder if she’ll be able to stand the whole way home. You tie her with a safety knot, lock the partition in, and get out to let one of the auction staff move the stallion in.

*

You head out the next morning with two buckets with the barest scoops of sweet feed, two leads, a brush, a pick, and a completely unwarranted sense of hope, like a child that’s been dreaming of second ring’s Santa and can finally check what’s in the boxes under the tree. John surprises you by thumping out of his bed after you. He’s wearing pajamas and heavy boots. Your son understands Safety First quite thoroughly, one of the many things about which you are proud.

The night seems to have settled both horses, or at least the buckskin, the bay has been nothing but well-mannered, and they both come over when you shake the grain in the buckets. The mare lets you clip a lead onto her halter and tie her to the fence. Surprisingly, the stud lets you do the same. You tie them far enough apart that you can groom the mare without getting in the range of the stud’s hooves. A kick can be fatal and he’s given little evidence that he can be handled safely.

You groom the friendly bay with your son and she leans into you alternatively as you get a particularly good spot. She lets you handle her feet with no fuss. Her hooves appear sound, clipped recently and not shod, but there are knots of scar tissue ringing her forelegs. The only thing you can imagine rubbing there like that are hobbles, but they shouldn’t have left such marks, not so wide or so long. You examine the halter and you can’t find a clasp. You slid a finger under all the way and manage two under her jaw and there doesn’t appear to be any painful rubbing so you leave it, for now.

You forget the matter, more or less, over the revelation that the stud lets you groom him. He’s even polite about it, all four legs on the ground the entire time, except when you tap to lift one of them to examine a hoof. He raises the requested leg like a gentleman. You’re still not sure you trust him, but perhaps he was just alarmed at the hubbub and changes yesterday. His halter likewise refuses to be removed. Your mind likewise skims over that detail, which is really not like you. You can’t quite manage to brush the shadow of a saddle from his back.

The months pass and John might not have a pony club horse, but he races home every day to see the hayburners in the field and you yourself find it relaxing to have a bit of company when you read on the porch with the occasional cigar. The fence comes up to the porch and the stud keeps trying to steal them.

You manage to convince your overly large pets that the barn is full of tasty things and not horse-eating monsters and the local large animal vet is able to draw blood for testing, pronounces the mare unlikely to decline further from any physically detectible injury. John decides that the mare is Redwing and her companion is dubbed Sunny. He starts a list of names for the unborn foal. You find the name bittersweet. Redwing can scarcely trot, let alone fly. The tests come back clean.

Redwing foals one night with you asleep in the barn, oblivious to the arrival of the much anticipated event. By the time you wake, the colt is almost dry and nursing. The placenta appears untouched, and you steal it for the vet to examine before the mare can eat it. Sunny is quiet, nose against the bars separating him from his family. You try to let him out the next day, but he won’t budge without Redwing. John reads the horses stories and debates the virtues of Bucephalus vs. Merrylegs vs. Flicka. He settles on Maltese Cat, because he likes the thought of a loyal friend, and this way he can use “Cat” as the colt’s barn name.

You’re not generally a superstitious sort, you understand enough about magic to direct your fears more appropriately, but you still feel a twinge of unease over the name. Kipling’s Maltese Cat was indeed loyal, clever and loyal to the point of self-sacrifice. Your boy could do far worse for a friend, but you hope that the colt doesn’t live up to his namesake in all ways.

John is fourteen when Cat is foaled.

He’s fifteen when Cat is a yearling, still full of dancing high spirits, baby coat shed out into a coat red as his dam with a metallic tint like his sire’s. The colt eats and grows like he’s going to be as tall as his sire and twice as wide as his dam.

John is sixteen when Cat turns two and handles like a gentleman thief, all good manners and good spirits, like a half ton dog, like a loving but rough older brother to Redwing’s next colt, the product of your own embarrassing inattention. Redwing nips him when he bumps the new baby. Sunny shakes him when he tries a second time and you wonder a bit at how well-mannered he is for a stallion or how Cat could be so large with probable parents of such different body types. Your mind drifts off the topic.

The new colt is Sol, no registered name any more than Cat, and he follows his older brother incessantly.

Cat has his dam’s dished face, his sire’s long legs, and the arch of both their necks. He has Redwing’s tiny two dots of white on his brow. His legs are more densely boned than either of them, fetlocks trimmed in feathering more appropriate to a Friesian or half-draft. He’s grown monstrously tall, as tall as his (improbable?) sire, but heavier, though you are unsure how. His mane and tail are growing long and John keeps the thick lengths of it religiously groomed.

Sol is all bones and tiny pudgy belly, tail a bottlebrush of fluff, body that ambiguous chestnut so many foals grow out of. He has four dots of white on his brow, a stocking on his near hind leg, and one blue eye just like his daddy. Once Sol first ventures out of Redwing’s shadow, he rockets into trouble wherever he can find it, and then comes rocketing back for someone to pull him out. In this manner in future years he brings home multiple dogs, and once, a swarm of bees. He sticks his tiny teacup muzzle into _everything_ and has learned from Cat to beg for peppermints.

Cat is John’s, just as John is Cat’s. Sol becomes yours in that captivating way babies beguile. In return, in some way that you have not connected with Sunny, or even sweet Redwing, you become Sol’s as you teach him to lead and handle and that umbrellas do not eat horses. When he scares himself with new discoveries, he’s as likely to rocket to you as to Redwing. He doesn’t long remain small enough to hide himself behind you, but he tries.

John is seventeen when he starts to more than lean on Cat, teaches the three year old not just how to lead or drive, or stand or come or go, or any number of their tricks for one another, but to take weight on his back and not panic, no matter what. Cat is handsome and healthy and willing and the vet recommended gelding him early to avoid the effects of testosterone on his behavior, but John convinces you that he can handle him and so you politely decline. You don’t know either parent’s lineage, but the Cat is clearly John’s and you can afford a small herd of horses and the small mountain of hay, grain, and groceries that they and John consume. You can afford the vet bills, even if they hadn’t been as rare as they have been, and college. It’s nothing like the place where you grew up, relatives out the wazoo, responsibilities to your people in exchange for their allegiance, but it’s comfortable.

The two of them make a pretty picture, John with his neat seat and steady hands, subtle leg aids invisible to the bystander as the two of them communicate. Your son still takes lessons with his riding instructor, but when he comes home he and Cat have their own language. John rides Cat with a hackamore and sometimes a bareback pad, sometimes with neither, and they could compete in dressage if John wished. Cat will take a bit or girth, will take a collar or harness and pull a wagon or a log or a sleigh full of neighborhood children, but the two of them seem to have an equal distain for it. They run in the fields and jump across country and Cat will stand still enough, steady enough, that John can stand on his back to reach higher fruit in the orchard. The first apple always goes to Cat, the second to John. The third and fourth are Cat’s. It’s probably just as well that you don’t know what else they get up to. Jumps you may well have happily taken in your youth are far more intimidating when they are obstacles over which your son is flinging himself.

Cat will come when you call and listens to you with all the attentiveness of a guest in your home. He lets you groom and tack him, leads politely, never nips or pushes for food, sets his feet down carefully and doesn’t crowd, suffers the dewormer, the farrier, and teeth floating with identical looks of martyred disgust but no resistance. He’s bold and unafraid but not pushy, not mouthy in the least. Whatever his unknown bloodlines, he’s a magnificent beast. Still, there is a distance between the two of you that you would not notice if you could not see him with your son. He plays pranks on John but never gives you trouble. Tag-and-chase, snatch-and-toss, the bloated-belly-that-leads-to-a-loose-girth. An impressive impromptu shower when John left a water bucket unattended and Cat flipped it over his head. They seem more like brothers than a boy and his horse.

Sol, now a yearling and handsomely attired in an unusual chimeric brindle coat, has become a Houdini and regularly escapes despite your best efforts. He’s usually found with his head through someone’s car or house window. He likes TV, and small children, especially those with food, and has interrupted no less than two dozen couples in the process of attempting intimacy.  Two dozen is the number that you know of. It may very well be more. Parked cars, people’s houses, under the bleachers, romantic hiking trips… Sol has a sort of radar sense for when to surprise people at their worse.

Luckily, horses are familiar enough to not be scary but rare enough that he can always find someone who seems to find it a privilege to share their lunch. You consider this a far better outcome than if he instead engendered attempts to shoot him and you try yet another method of controlling his rambling before he gets hit by a car. You write your name and phone number on his halter and soon enough plenty of people in town that you’ve never met know Sol by your name.

Sunny has previously never shown any interest in leaving Redwing, but his younger son is a bad influence and the two of them take day trips to go harass your neighbors. You forward all the house calls to your cell phone for the next sighting of a brindle or buckskin chasing cars or dogs or playing keep away with someone’s lawn flamingos.

You get a PO box because the mailman doesn’t deserve what they do to her. Granted, you don’t know of anyone who has ever filed a sexual harassment case against a horse, but she could probably make a case for Sunny being dangerous. People might hand-wave an intimate sniff from a dog. Experiencing the same from a sixteen hand tall stallion is a different magnitude of awkward.

Sunny still does a little victory prance whenever he manages to run someone off your property. Redwing appears unimpressed. You send a sincere apology to the media broadcast company and request that they schedule all their maintenance with you in advance. When all else fails, you can lock your Houdinis in their stalls, but you don’t like to do it more than necessary, and only when you’re home. If there was a fire, it would be a death sentence.

And so you raise the fences until Sol is forced to dig his way free or solve a new lock. Sunny leaps eight feet with what you’re pretty sure is a sneer and climbs the porch stairs to tap on the window until you let them both stick their heads in to watch you make breakfast and watch the news. Cat has long since convinced your son to sleep in the barn on weekends. On weekends, you usually get to sleep in.

Sunny is inordinately fond of bacon for an herbivore. Sol will hoover anything covered in sugar. They once managed to open the front door and maneuver themselves _into_ your kitchen where you had set out three dozen salted caramel apple cupcakes to cool. When you had surveyed the unsalvageable wreckage you knew you would have to send a donation and apology to school with John in lieu of your planned contribution to the bake sale. Clean up of the mashed remains was easy enough. You opened the window, called Redwing over and fed her the rest. Redwing at least is gracious about waiting for an invitation.

When John is eighteen and flipping through college acceptances like so many onerous cards in a bad hand and you are already missing him and trying to convince yourself you’re excited, the low level of ambient magic in ring two finally cracks the binding spells on the halters and instead of two eccentrically large family pets and their offspring, you have two dazed and confused, and in Sunny’s case, _angry_ , shapeshifters left reeling from the kickback of years of an enforced shape. You’re not sure that Redwing is really female any more than Sunny is really male. You can’t imagine what it must have been like. You wonder what this means for Cat and Sol. You wonder how John will feel having lost his best friend to a stranger. You think about how you left halters on animals in your care for _four years_ , and didn’t notice. No matter the compulsion, no matter that you are the only person in generations of your family to have neither horns nor the faintest tinge of gray to your skin, it was _irresponsible_.


	4. (The Inside of a Horse Being No Place for a Child)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How John acquired two younger brothers. ("Shut up, Karkat, I'm definitely the oldest!")

Red and Sunny recover slowly over the next few weeks. They don’t tell you much of what happened, though they still take comfort in one another, one can barely sit before the other is huddled in. Redwing no longer limps, bands of scar tissue showing over forearms and not forelegs now, wrist to elbow, the flesh furrowed deeply in a way that horse anatomy didn’t reveal. Red can’t lift much, but they retain use of their fingers. Have regained use of them.

The two of them eat your food and sleep the sleep of the exhausted in your guest bedroom or a box stall and spend the whole day, every day, trying to lure Cat and Sol close. You don’t know if their children are animals or people. You fear that they don’t know either. When Cat was weaned it happened naturally. Redwing vanished from Sol’s view abruptly and his plaintive whinnies keep you up late with worry.

Eventually Redwing, you still don’t know your guests’ real names, shifts back into the mare’s form. Sol, two years old and still a bit more chubby than muscular, crowds close to her(?) and Cat seems reassured. They spend the day like that in the field and at nightfall the familiar form leads the two year old into the box stall and beds down. Cat ends up in the next stall, determined not to be alone. This time, when the shift comes, the children seem to understand.

Cat shifts the next day and John brings his best friend a set of his own clothes, and blankets, lots of blankets, as clothes are as yet foreign territory. Cat looks a lot like him, like he used John’s form to guess what the new form ought to look like. The two of them curl up like kittens in a box stall, and over the next week, John manages to convince him(?) to come inside. Cat spends the week moving like a car crash victim and wears a new face every day. By week two, the changes slow, as if he’s found himself. His skin darkens, lightens, shifts, and he wears the same shadow gray as his parents. Sunny’s grown a set of four stiletto horns. Cat has two little nubs, almost hidden in his hair, just like Redwing. Horn size and shape are absolutely not related to magical reserves, but their existence is pretty much proof of magic. There are places in the ninth ring that no one dares go without them.

You drive out an hour each way to the import and specialty grocery store and select four perfect Sunheart oranges. You stare at them in your basket, $80 of magical fruit that in your childhood you could have, and did, lean out your window and pick for a snack, spitting the seeds back out the window. You put them back and take two cartons of a dozen each, though not before checking them. You substitute three individual fruit that seem duller to you. Anyone purchasing them for their inherent magic would do the same. Anyone else won’t be able to tell the difference.

Sunny inhales two of the fruits, skin and seeds and all, before you can get inside the house to put them down. Redwing, who still hasn’t spoken to you except a very soft thanks, as if their vocal cords are strained, eats one, slowly, segment by segment, chewing the seeds with the flesh, then the bitter but still magically replenishing rind. They lean into Sunny on the porch as if even that much was exhausting, and you look away when Sunny licks their fingers clean.

Cat stares at you with distrust he never had as a horse, but John takes one of the fruits, splits it in half, and the two of them consume it together while Sol snuffles at Cat and snatches bites, both of them happier to steal it then have it offered. The five of them work their way through almost all the fruit, John insisting you have some, and you sit with the boys on the porch that evening as John splits the last of the fruit, a segment each for Cat, then Sol, then you, then him. It tastes like color, like it is washing a thin film of obstruction from your eyes so that the world is bright again. You had forgotten what it felt like to travel from the seventh to the first ring. The juice bursting across your tongue is like making the trip in reverse. You don’t regret leaving. It was the right thing to do. But you haven’t allowed yourself to admit what you miss about your once home in a very long time. You sneak Sol some of your share and he lets you.

Sol shifts that night and in the morning there’s three gray skinned shifters in your guest bedroom, the youngest curled between their parents, and Cat curled up in your son’s bed, the soft sound of Breeze drifting through the house. You can hear John’s voice carried further than it ought, soft promises, the sound of two bodies breathing in time.

Cat’s first word, as far as you know, is _fuck_. _Fuck This. This is Fucked Up. Fuck_. You wonder just what John has been discussing with him, what he’s been indoctrinating the young shapeshifter with all these years, and you don’t react. This _is_ fucked up.

It’s two weeks after Sol has shifted to human for the first time and he’s finally steady on his feet, fingers still adjusting, creating muscle memory, but he can lift and grasp and hold things without having to stare at his hands as if providing another with instructions. It’s seven weeks since the halters broke. A two year old horse is a teenager, almost a young adult. A two year old human is a toddler. Sol shifts between toddler and teenager human forms, all varying states of knobby-kneed and lanky and coltish and chubby-bellied, like he can’t find one that fits. He seems fascinated with his hands, frustrated that he can’t quite get them to carry out all the tasks he wants, all the things John and you do without thought. Of course. He doesn’t have any muscle memory for such things.

If Cat is suspicious of you and gravitating to a world that mostly consists of John and himself, if Sunny is mostly preoccupied with watching Redwing and all the entrances and exits, if Redwing seems preoccupied with some internal musings, it is Sol that is your solace. Toddler Sol lifts pudgy hands in the universal pick-me-up posture and so you do. It has been a long time since you could do this for John. Sometimes Sol is heavier than others, something-like-eight instead of two, or four, though fortunately always light enough to lift, and not suddenly a horse again. Sometimes you read on the couch and can hear soft sounds of others in the house and everyone is preoccupied but the youngest, who seeks you out. The two of you speak, you give him answers for what you can, correct his speech, mimic motions for him to mimic back, give him objects to lift or pinch or roll between his fingers. Sometimes he comes to you even when the others aren’t preoccupied. He’s smart, very smart, and you can’t help but feel a sense of pride as he learns, as he seeks you out.

Of the adults, it’s Redwing who finally addresses you directly. You are cleaning up after dinner one night, sandwiches again, all vegetarian, easy to eat without utensils. You’ve made multiple trips to the specialty grocery and they could pay their rent this month in your receipts for oranges. Sunny is lying on the couch with the news playing on the TV, trying to catch up on what they’ve missed.  Sol is lying on top of them, already asleep. Sol looks about six today, has for most of this week. Sunny’s fingers are gentle as they scrape through the soft mess of hair, its black, golds, and browns. Sol’s four horns are tiny and still blunt in comparison. You put the last of the dishes in the draining rack and Redwing puts the water carafe back in the fridge and turns back to you.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Redwing tells you in an almost gravelly androgynous voice, and it sounds like a goodbye.

“You are welcome to stay as long as you need.” You return. “And if you must leave, please know that you are welcome here any time, you or yours.”

Their face tightens, but they don’t look away. Their irises are a beautiful swirl of gold and red, exotic in circles lower than the fifth, but the pain in their expression is very human.

“I… You have not been unkind and your further patience and forbearance is appreciated with the utmost gratitude. Under another’s… care, perhaps we would not still have one another, or our children, or be in any condition to travel. Under other circumstances, better circumstances, we would be grateful for a longer stay, but we have business elsewhere.”

They look down at their hands and their fingers twist in the still familiar flick of upper ring hand-cant, ‘it is of no matter’. You haven’t seen anyone hand-cant since you left the seventh ring. There’s sign language here, and perhaps some signs are similar, but the one is a Deaf language and the other is for silent communication in places where words are sometimes Words. Your hands feel clumsy, but you twist back your own, ‘I await your communication, whenever it should be distilled’. Their mouth twists up in a half smile-grimace and they shake their head, flick out a ‘it is no fault of yours’. Neither of you point out that the first part of the ‘it is of no matter’ sign is often poetically translated as ‘if wishes were horses…’. They continue aloud.

“Psii and I were locked in our forms for some time before we ended up in the third ring auction. We both had children before and when Void decided to strike against us, they enforced the same punishment on them both. We need to find our children.”

They don’t say, “We need to find out what happened to them.” But they know as well as you do that four plus years is a long time for a horse and anything could have happened to them. Gelding. Breeding. Abuse. Steak. A misstep causing a broken leg, likely survivable as a human, unlikely as a horse.

Those strong enough in magic to wear the shadow skin are seldom seen in the rings below six. You with your meager sense of magic certainly can tell the difference between the rings, but it is not a feeling of oppression as a practitioner might feel. It is rare for magic workers to go more than a few levels below their home ring. You can count on one hand the number of shadow skinned or horned practitioners you’ve seen in the second ring before now, and two of those are television personalities. You never saw any in the first, at least not outside the idiot box.

Where you live, there are laws against slavery and indentured servitude, laws against animal and child abuse, laws against _assault_ , but the second ring is not prepared for the more exotic fallouts of magical abuse. They all need a rest, probably need a great deal of therapy, but you understand why it cannot wait longer, why they might prefer to recover in a richer atmosphere. Perhaps it is a mixed blessing. Sunny, or perhaps ‘Psii’, has been leaving behind little scorched fingerprints on the kitchen table and in a few spots on the walls for the past week. Red erases what they come across, but Psii clearly needs something on which they can focus their immense magical reserves. Still, you don’t like the idea of them going out to face potential attackers when they still have to concentrate to pick things up and not drop them.

“Is there someone you can contact, or does it need to be done in person?”

Red holds your gaze as they reply.

“We don’t know what we will find, or who among our allies is still alive or able to assist. It must be done in person. It might be dangerous. I hesitate to ask, but you are no second ring by nature and Karthkat and Sollixian are still very young…” You can hear John’s names for their children in the names they’ve chosen. You wonder if it was only a matter of practicality, but it still warms you to know that what was offered, however different the circumstances, was not outright rejected.

“Your children are welcome here, those who are here and those whom you will be retrieving.”

“Thank you.” It is a sigh of relief. They rub their temples, scrape their fingers through their hair, rub at their eyes. They’re only a few inches shorter than you, they may well be older than you, but they look so much like John you want to tell them to get some sleep and let the day bring clarity. You keep your mouth shut.

Red looks up again, barks out a laugh.

“We had forgotten to introduce ourselves, forgive me. I am Shadekith, once of both Blood and Shadow, though the council will have certainly since chosen another to so mediate. My mate here is Psiion, second Mage-Princeps of the House of Liminal Spaces, that is, Destruction and Creation, though also unlikely still so titled. I am afraid that there was a political disagreement and someone thought it poetic that we no longer be able to speak, or, in truth, remember much. It was, _is_ , most disconcerting.”

The first part is rueful. The second hardens with the anger so familiar in Psiion. Someone struck at their children. Someone tried, and for a while succeeded, in reducing them to animals. They might well still be animals, or dead, if they were still in a ring with higher ambient magic. It was all happenstance. What if you had not gone that day? What if someone else had bid? That leaves aside entirely the queasy issue of their subsequent children, how capable either of them were of consent, however beloved the result.

You dearly hope that they succeed in their counterstrike, and that the cost is not too dear. But however badly they have been wronged, Cat and Sol are in no way ready to face any hostile magic practitioners. For the sake of all the little gods, they’re still trying to finesse forks and spoons. Cat can read, if slowly and with stubborn determination, and Sol’s comprehension seems quite high, but neither of them can write and Sol’s handcant only covers, “yes”, “no”, “stop”, “please”, “thank you”, and “slowly”. You don’t know what Cat knows besides “fuck!”, and that, certainly, he would only have learned from Psiion.

What the adults do is not your business, however you ache for them. But you cannot stand aside and watch the children go into danger, however capable their parents, and that last you do not truly know.

“Void. You said that Void struck at you. How dangerous is it for the children to stay here when you go back?”

“It would be safer for them here. If you’re offering.” This is deliberately casual and if you cannot help the terrible circumstances that brought you into one another’s presence, you did not think Shadekith thought so badly of you as to doubt this. Their hands are deliberately still.

“I cannot help you in matters of magic, but I raised John, and would be honored to care for Karthkat and Sollixian so long as they need it.”

“You know more of magic than most seem to in the third through first rings, at least if the media is to be trusted.”

“I was from the seventh ring, and John came into my keeping in the fifth. There were those in my family with various gifts, but I only know theory, and that the basics.”

“Kat and Sol would benefit from such. They know nothing now but the shift, and that only two forms, and their variations.”

“I won’t be able to help them if a shift goes wrong. I don’t even know the basics of how it works at all.”

“Shifting is, surprisingly perhaps, the form of magic _least_ likely to cause them harm. I could shift from bird to human in midair, and harm myself in the drop, but I cannot shift human to fish outside the water. They might get stuck for a while in one form if they are tired, a predator or circumstance may be harmful to said form, but once they have shifted as they have, without a strong external binding, they cannot be held in a form, or trap themselves, once they recover their strength. Construction and destruction can go badly. Healing can harm if done incorrectly. Spoken magic can invoke incorrectly and open doors that should remain closed, but shifting is the natural state of those born to it. On that account at least, they will be fine. One does not lose one’s mind to the animal form without outside coercion.” This last bit snaps out with the sarcastic handcant for “such is disregarded, the source of disquiet being below notice”, or more literally, “shoo, fly”.

It is a long speech from Shadekith, though something in the way that they speak tells you that they once had the stamina to hold forth for much longer. An orator’s voice and inflections. A threat to their enemies, one who can speak a Working clearly, precisely, correctly. No wonder their voice is rough and Psiion’s is not. Like their more visible scars, their captors would have acted to nullify their weapons first. How powerful are their enemies? Have they forgotten those smuggled away into captivity, or are they yet alert? Are your guests out-planning them or seeking a trap?

“How do you plan on finding someone who specializes in Void? I know enough that you can’t simply scry for them, not without something sympathetic.”

“Ah, well, we have the halters. Our halters, I should say, the years having sipped of our sweat and emotions. And dragon leather, like magical creatures of all kinds, is rare as the mages that can shapeshift.”

Even as you realize what they mean, that terrible moment when something you assumed relatively innocent is proved untrue, the bile rising as you think about dragon leather upholstered thrones, and griffin feather pens as fancy graduation gifts, and unicorn horns, alike to human horns except in color, you find your hands already twisting out the shapes of the respectful lullaby of the Dead, “Sleep and be troubled no more,/All that has harmed you has gone before,/Rest in the peaceful fields of After”.

Your mother taught you this, a meditation to calm the disquiet mind and keep the hands occupied. You haven’t thought of her in months at least, not since the last time John got into something that made you wonder what she’d say. Shadekith respectfully waits for you to finish, places their hands palm to palm and nods over them to you. Amen. ( _Oh gods,_ _there are no magical animals_.)

“It is terrible indeed to think of our ancestors and cousins and siblings so used. Still, it is an opportunity, because as large as a dragon is, there is a finite amount of leather to be created from one, and more finite still the number of collars or harnesses or halters to be made from it. If we track each down… we will be where we are needed.”

If they track them down, hopefully they will find their children, or leads to finding them. If nothing else, they will find other prisoners, or witness their experience if they are past help. It is yet another reason that you don’t want the children to go with them.

The two of you finish cleaning the kitchen in a companionable silence. Sol wanders back in, still sleepy and adorable, hair a mess. He looks at both of you, then tugs your pant leg and lifts his arms. You heft him with a little swirl that makes him laugh and Shadekith, with a showy flourish, winks at you and makes the dust rags in the hall closet dance out and clean the crannies of the kitchen. Sol laughs again, a delightful little baby giggle, and tucks his head into your neck when his parent wiggles their fingers as if to magic him too.

“Young Master Sollixian,” you intone pompously, “Surely you are not afraid of Shadekith the Magnificent, Leader of Dust Rags and Defeater of Grime?! Unless, (gasp!), you didn’t wash behind your ears?!”

You make a show of trying to find his ears and he covers them, giggles again and you feel him try to blow a raspberry on your neck, a little wet spit spot that doesn’t quite vibrate so much as trickle down your neck. Younger you, pre-baby-John you, would be grabbing for a rag and wincing, but it just feels like relief to know that he’s finally confident enough to sass you both back again. Horse-Sol had little respect for anyone, though he had a healthy sense of spacial reasoning and a thriving concept of bribery as well as being able to count to at least five peppermints, the going rate for coming home quietly after chasing dogs. Human-Sol has been quieter in a way, less exuberant, though he has started to talk.

Shadekith the Magnificent defeats the rest of your dust and you start up a game of “Oops, tossed the baby” which makes Sol shriek with laughter until everyone else in the house ends up in the kitchen too. John spins in place holding Sol until they’re both dizzy and doesn’t so much toss Sol at Cat so much as he grabs them both with one arm each and squishes them together in an overbearing hug. When Sol ends up back with Shadekith you see Cat open and close his hands like he’s not quite sure if he would have caught his younger brother, like it’s not an option to fail, and he’s going to practice until he knows he won’t.

It’s easy to think of Sol as young, only two, technically. Maybe four is twice as old, but Cat’s not your son’s age, not really. He’s a child too, just old enough to feel responsible for his younger brother. You ache anew for him, in the midst of play and trapped anew in the limitations of his form.

Psiion saunters in shirtless on two feet, wearing gray barred wings and smoking one of your cigars like a disreputable angel. Shadekith tosses them their youngest and instead of catching him with their hands, the one hand goes back to their mouth for another puff and the other circles in a motion that the flying child follows. Zoom, around the kitchen, buzzing Cat, circling Shadekith, lapping the kitchen several times until the aerial child lands in your arms when he makes grabby motions at you, one hand circling and pausing in “stop”, “stop”, “stop” directed at Psiion.

Sol clings to you and his chest is heaving as he hiccups. You rub his back. He clings tighter, and then vomits down your shirt, hiccups, and starts crying, chest heaving as if he can’t get enough air. You stride to the kitchen sink to get him some water to rinse his mouth. You wipe his face after he swishes and spits into the sink a few times and you open the window. Behind you, you can hear Cat berating Psiion as you lead Sol through breathing more slowly, ask him if it was the motion or the smell that bothered him. The smell, he decides, nose wrinkling at your own shared bile smell. Regardless of his apparent age at any time, he still has an adorable lisp that seems oddly appropriate to the four to six year old range he’s been favoring.

You sit him on the counter while you strip off his shirt, dump it in the sink. You shirt and undershirt go in next, you spot clean the both of you and you scoop him back up before you turn to interrupt the charming family sitcom of Cat jumping for Psiion’s still smoking cigar while they pretend to ignore him. Shadekith is trying to intervene. You get a towel out of the cabinet, toss it over Sol’s back to keep him warm and ask if he wants to know a secret. He nods. You cross the room and turn the lights off. Everyone stops and looks at you. You turn them back on.

“Master Psiion, please do not smoke in the house. As an adult, you have the right to determine what you put in your body, but the children ought not to be exposed.”

Sol coughs theatrically, and you’re very proud, you didn’t have to coach him at all on this part.

Like a light switch Psiion switches from antagonizing Cat… to antagonizing Cat.

“Guess what else I put in my body…” this is said with a leer and a particular head tilt at Shadekith and the middle finger flick and beckon universally understood throughout the rings. Shadekith blushes red under the gray cast of their skin.

Psiion stamps out the cigar into the ash tray you usually take outside with you for your weekly indulgence and makes sure to roll and thrust it in a provocative manner, slowly, while staring Cat down.

Cat blinks once, and Psiion smiles, a slow Cheshire-cat, I-win.

Cat head-butts them and the smile vanishes at impact. The two of them go down and feathers fly. You carry Sol out the other entrance and Shadekith joins you. John is still in the kitchen trying to convince Cat that domestic scuffling isn't worth it. From the sounds of your kitchen chairs being jostled, he’s not having any success.

You head to the guest room they’ve all been sharing and find Sol another shirt. It’s just as well that years ago, still a seventh ring native at heart, you packed away all of John’s outgrown clothes against future need. In the heart of consumerist cultures in the third through first rings, you would be tip-toeing the line on hoarding, but in the seventh ring you know better than to toss anything before it’s worn out. With a child who keeps changing size and a large attic, you've been proven eccentric and not crazy. You pass Sol to Shadekith, who has followed you, and seems to find nothing amiss in the banging from the kitchen, and you stop in your room to get your own replacement.

Back in the hall, Shadekith is rubbing gentle circles on Sol’s back and promising him that the idiots in the kitchen won’t hurt one another. Sol won’t reply, just makes a sort of whine that waivers like a little whinny. He nudges at his parent’s chest, and when Shadekith doesn’t respond, he grabs at their shirt. You’re embarrassed how long it takes you to get.

Shadekith’s arms are trembling. The exercise in the kitchen is the most you’ve seen them lift. They slide down the wall and cradle Sol. They unbutton their shirt and the child shrinks in their arms from maybe four to three to two. You look away, not sure what the appropriate response is. You hear Sol latch on, Shadekith’s inhale at the rough contact, the exhaled laugh. You should leave, give them some privacy.

“I’m sorry, it was not my intent to disturb you.” Shadekith is clearly the most polite of your guests.

“Ah, not so much disturbed as I don’t wish to intrude.”

“You’re not. Sit down a while, take a load off of your feet and my neck. We should talk before I leave you to unravel all of this on your own.”

You sit. From the corner of your eye you can see their hand rubbing at Sol’s back. Their face is the same, always androgynous. Their silhouette, outside of the child lump, is scarcely different.

“Horses, are simpler, at least in some ways. If I am afraid I run. If I cannot run, I fight. If I am hungry I find food. There is anger, but it’s not complicated anger. It’s not, ‘this person who is not here wronged me, I must find them and exact revenge’. There is no horse equivalent to ‘everything I thought was me has changed, who am I, how do I relate to others, who do I blame for my emotional disquiet?’”

“It sounds like puberty.”

“It rather is. Still want to babysit now?”

“We’ll manage.”

“It is one thing to be a person and then an animal and then a person again. It is another to think that you are one and find yourself the other. Kat’s angry, rightfully, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. And Psiion is good at claiming blame.”

“Then all that in the kitchen… was deliberate?”

“Ah, well, not all, we didn’t intend for Sol to get involved but Psiion has been looking for a breakthrough with Kat. Kat’s very closely bonded with your son, and I think that it is to both their benefits, however difficult this is. Kat needs someone he can trust.  And John would be having more accidental magic incidents if there wasn’t another mage on whom his magic has focused. Your son is very gifted. We’ve discussed a few control techniques, but there’s only so much one can do in the second ring. If he wants to fly, he’d need to be in the fourth or higher.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” You don’t know what else to say.

“No need. He knows.” You wonder if your own disquiet is that John might leave you, fledge out as it were, or that you have grown comfortable in this place and will miss it when you follow him elsewhere. Why does the thought of raising two more children, inherently magically gifted children, not bother you, but the thought of any of the three of them leaving does?

In the quiet between you, you can hear Sol snuffling and finally little snores from under Shadekith’s shirt. Cat seems determined to be John’s equal in age, however much time and context he’s missed, but Sol’s grown _younger_. Too young to lose his parents, even for a little while.

“What do I need to know?” It is a ridiculous question, and even as it escapes you, you know it’s unfair to ask. But what else can you?

“First that you need not worry about the magic. It can wait. They are children. Cat will try to tough it out, though there may be some “you can’t possibly understand” to go with it. I’ve raised three teenagers, it’s part of the great circle of life, more mystical than any Working. We survived Kankri, after which a casual stroll in a hurricane would have been welcome, bless their stalwart mind. Sol will give you more trouble at first. He doesn’t have someone to model himself after as Cat has John. He’s younger and still in flux I suppose. Feed their minds, as much as you can. Conversation. Books. Mediated media.” They stroke the soft tufts of multicolored hair poking out of the top of their shirt collar, trace tiny horns, continue.

“I can’t tell you if it is safer for you to keep them here or to make them public, to file for their citizenship and make it clear that they would be missed should they disappear. I don’t think that it will matter in terms of safety, but should be considered in time according to their development, when they are ready and need to become more social. In truth, most Mages don’t wish to descend to the lower rings, and consider them quite below their notice, inconveniently uncomfortable. That’s a protection, they’re used to it, they would actually need time to acclimate to higher levels of ambient magic. No one else knows of their existence. Once we leave they will be that much safer. We will be back. I can promise that much, though not when, or in what condition. Even Death cannot hold against that. I would apologize for the mess we are leaving you to sort, but that implies that I could choose otherwise and I cannot. I can at least do you the courtesy of not lying.”

You sit there in the silence together, eventually joined by the rest of your family, John leaning into your side and Cat into his, Psiion on Shadekith’s other side, the six of you ridiculously crammed into the hall when there are beds for reasonable people. Psiion’s sporting a black eye and looks calmer, less cruising for trouble than, “found it, feel better, let’s not discuss”. You spare a thought to wonder what their teenage years were like. Cat looks calmer too, wears a similar expression on a very differently shaped face. You suspect that you'll find out soon enough. 

Cat gets up and returns with blankets from all the beds and you eventually fall asleep uncomfortably upright. When you wake, flat in the hallway with a pinched nerve in your neck and a toddler in your arms, the other adults are gone already. One part of you insists that it’s time to get up and feed the horses and that gets you upright before you remember you don’t have horses any more. You have a muddled memory of Psiion shifting into something muscular and musky, winged and furred, like to a lion, of Shadekith turning to rest against their side.

John and Cat are curled together, foreheads touching. Sol is maybe threeish, older than last night at least, and he’s drooling in his sleep, nose still congested from last night. You wipe his face as best you can with your handkerchief and tuck him into the warmth left behind in the blankets. This is probably as quiet as it will ever get. Poor baby, you wonder if he understood his parents were preparing to leave. A part of you thinks he must have known something was wrong to want comfort from Shadekith so badly after days of being mostly six.

You make breakfast, and set the coffee to percolate as you put your stash of cinnamon rolls in the oven and start up another batch of quick rise yeast bread. Comfort food can’t solve everything, but you need them to know that they’re wanted here. If nothing else sunk in well in your own teenage years, your mother taught you that punching dough is remarkable cathartic, and both your younger sons have a sweet tooth.


End file.
